293 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



truth 



Again, many of the islands have species pe- 

 culiar to themselves. The little island of 

 Juan Fernandez, 300 miles from the main- 

 land, has three species peculiar to itself, of 

 which two are so distinct from all others 

 known that they cannot for a moment be 

 confounded with any of them. ARGYLL 

 Reign of Law, ch. 5, p. 135. (Burt.) 



1426. HABITS FIXED IN YOUTH 



All Later Life Dependent on Early Years. 

 If a boy grows up alone at the age of games 

 and sports, and learns neither to play ball, 

 nor row, nor sail, nor ride, nor skate, nor 

 fish, nor shoot, probably he will be seden- 

 tary to the end of his days; and, tho the 

 best of opportunities be afforded him for 

 learning these things later, it is a hundred 

 to one but he will pass them by and shrink 

 back from the effort of taking those neces- 

 sary first steps the prospect of which, at an 

 earlier age, would have filled him with eager 

 delight. The sexual passion expires after 

 a protracted reign; but it is well known 

 that its peculiar manifestations in a given 

 individual depend almost entirely on the 

 habits he may form during the early period 

 of its activity. Exposure to bad company 

 then makes him a loose liver all his days; 

 chastity kept at first makes the same easy 

 later on. JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 24, 

 p. 401. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1427. HABITS, GOOD AS WELL AS 



BAD The fact is that our virtues are hab- 

 its as much as our vices. All our life, so 

 far as it has definite form, is but a mass of 

 habits practical, emotional, and intellec- 

 tual systematically organized for our weal 

 or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward 

 our destiny, whatever the latter may be. 

 JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 8, p. 64. (H. 

 H. & Co., 1900.) 



1428. HABITS SHOW MAN'S COM- 

 POSITE NATURE There is no part of 

 man's composite nature in which the inti- 

 mate relation between mind and body is 

 more obvious than it is in the formation 

 of habitual modes of activity, whether 

 psychical or corporeal; the former, like the 

 latter, being entirely conformable to the 

 laws which express the ordinary course of 

 the nutritive operations. CARPENTER Men- 

 tal Physiology, bk. i, ch. 8, p. 337. (A., 

 1900.) 



1429. HAECKEL AND MONISM Body 

 without a Soul Universe without a Spirit. 

 Ernst Haeckel is an eminent comparative 

 anatomist and physiologist, who has earned 

 a wide and deserved reputation by his able 

 and laborious studies of the calcareous 

 sponges, the radiolarians, and other low 

 forms of life. . . . He is not merely an 

 evolutionist, but what he terms a " monist," 

 and the monistic philosophy, as defined by 

 him, ^includes certain negations and certain 

 positive principles of a most comprehensive 

 and important character. It implies the 

 denial of all spiritual or immaterial exist- 



ence.' Man is to the monist merely a physio- 

 logical machine, and Nature is only a 

 greater self-existing and spontaneously mov- 

 ing aggregate of forces. Monism can thus 

 altogether dispense with a creative will as 

 originating Nature, and adopts the other 

 alternative of self-existence or causelessness 

 for the universe and all its phenomena. 

 Again, the monistic doctrine necessarily im- 

 plies that man, the animal, the plant, and 

 the mineral are only successive stages of the 

 evolution of the same primordial matter, 

 constituting thus a connected chain of be- 

 ing, all the parts of which sprang spontane- 

 ously from each other. Lastly, as the ad- 

 mixture of primitive matter and force would 

 itself be a sort of dualism, Haeckel regards 

 these as ultimately one, and apparently re- 

 solves the origin of the universe into the 

 operation of a self-existing energy having in 

 itself the potency of all things. After all, 

 this may be said to be an approximation to 

 the idea of a Creator, but not a living and 

 willing Creator. DAWSON Facts and Fan- 

 cies in Modern Science, lect. 1, p. 54. (A. 

 B. P. S.) 



143O. HALF-TRUTH, A, TERRIFIES 



Biela's Comet Crosses the Earth's Orbit 

 False Alarm Given by Pseudo-science. In 

 calculating the epoch of the reappearance of 

 the new body [Biela's comet], Damoiseau 

 had found that the comet would, on October 

 29, 1832, before midnight, cross the plane 

 in which the earth moves at the only place 

 where a comet would be likely to encounter 

 the earth. The passage of the body would, 

 according to calculation, take place in the 

 plane, but a little inside the earth's orbit, 

 and at a distance equal to four and two- 

 thirds terrestrial radii. As the length of 

 the comet's radius was equal to five and one- 

 third terrestrial radii, it was probable from 

 all the evidence that on October 29, 1832, 

 before midnight, a part of the terrestrial* 

 orbit would be occupied by the comet. 



These results, supported by all desirable 

 scientific authority, were brought by the 

 newspapers to the notice of the public; we 

 may imagine the profound sensation which 

 they produced. It was a fact! the end of 

 time was near! the earth was about to be 

 shattered, pulverized, annihilated by the 

 shock of the comet! Such was the subject 

 of all conversation. The strongest minds 

 were for a moment disturbed. 



But a question remained to be asked, and 

 the newspapers had neither stated it nor 

 even anticipated it. At what place in its 

 immense orbit would the earth be found on 

 October 29, 1832, before midnight, at the mo- 

 ment when the comet would cross this orbit 

 at one of its nodes ? Calculation very quick- 

 ly settled this difficulty. Arago wrote in the 

 Annuaire for 1832: "The passage of the 

 comet will take place very near a certain 

 point of the terrestrial orbit on October 29, 

 before midnight; well, the earth will not 

 reach the same point till the morning of 

 November 30 that is to say, more than a 



